Inferno
by Mala
Summary: Sydney and Shepherd are safe from everything but themselves...


He whimpers and moans in his sleep, curving, instinctively, towards the heat of the hearth. You wonder what visions plague him as he surrenders to the cold safehouse floor. Does he see his hands covered in blood? Does he see Danny's face in that instant before he pulls the trigger? Just one face...or a hundred? A thousand?  
  
It's not time to leave for the airfield yet. There's still a few hours.   
  
You should let him rest. But you won't. Instead, you'll keep him in the land of nightmares just a bit longer. A small price to pay for tears shed in the forest...for animal wails cried to the sky that made you sound exactly like the lunatic you weren't in that institution. Why not let him suffer just a fraction of what you've suffered?  
  
He can wake up.  
  
You can't.  
  
You never will.  
  
The firelight reflects off his skull...the gaunt lines of his face. He looks like he's been through an ordeal. Months, years, of torture. You think he must have been a handsome man once. Maybe even a good man. Before SD-6.  
  
You were *all* many things before SD-6.  
  
Innocent. Happy. Stupid.  
  
"Sydney...noooo..." he whispers, hand whipping out...reaching blindly for you in the darkness. His soft, gentle burr crawls under your skin just like it did the first time you heard it. Gives you dry heaves, a tiny flicker of lust, and untold faith in him all at once. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."  
  
He can't really apologize. There aren't enough "sorrys" in the world to bring Danny back...to make it all okay. You learned that the hard way.  
  
It is a lesson that will take time. Months. Years.   
  
And SD-6...well, they might be disappointed. He might not survive this night. He might just throw himself off a bridge and lose to the icy black waters and sink. And when he surfaces, he'll be free and dead and have all the time in the world to learn the colors of a sky under which he's no longer a killer. Where his mind, his actions, and his guilt are all his own.  
  
He'll learn not to say he's sorry.  
  
He'll learn to live with what he's done, where he's been.  
  
He'll learn to change where he's going.  
  
So, you take his warm, callused fingers. "It's all right, Shepherd," you hear yourself soothe. "It's okay...it'll be okay." Empty words everyone says when they're trying to hush a restless sleeper...or a mourning would-be bride. But you mean them. You do.  
  
But you don't nudge him out of the trap of slumber.  
  
Five more minutes, you think.  
  
Five more minutes in Hell won't kill him.  
  
Living there every day sure hasn't killed *you*.  
  
***   
  
Cold...heat...flashes of black and white light...you raise your arm...see his startled face in the mirror...her hand is gentle and firm in yours and you want to hold it forever and ever, seek redemption in her palm...the whisper-scream of your silencer...your gloves soaked red as you paint the body with it's own blood...a horrorshow. Did she cry when she saw him lying there? Did she lurch up and heave into the toilet? Did she curse and howl and shatter?  
  
Did she want to kill you?  
  
Did you even know?  
  
The fire jumps and sparks just inches away. You can see it through your lashes as you return from that place of Not Quite Asleep and Not Quite Awake. Sydney's hand in yours is not part of the haphazard dreamscape...it is real. Warm flesh and blood pulsing beneath it. Would she pull away if she knew you were back from your leisurely stroll through your multitude of sins? Would she mask the disgust in her eyes quickly enough with that achingly beautiful compassion?  
  
You breathe in and out, evenly, not daring to move a muscle. The flickering light on her weary, pale face...it's the most glorious thing you've ever seen. Scrubbed of make-up, of masks, of everything except the persistence of memory, she is your savior, your angel...your penance.   
  
You know she will haunt you long after the faces of your hapless victims have faded from your fractured mind.   
  
"Oh, God..." The cry escapes your lips before you can stop it. The tears follow, each an individual curse of shame, of regret, of self-recrimination. You shudder. Her skin against yours...it's too much.   
  
More kindness than you deserve.  
  
But she doesn't release you. No...she only brings you closer, pillowing your head on her lap and stroking the side of your face with her fingers. "It's okay. We're going to be okay. I promise."  
  
Pretty lies.  
  
Wouldn't she rather slit your throat than caress it?  
  
If this beautiful girl had killed your lover, you know you would crumble her between your fingers and toss away her ashes. Does that make her weaker than you? Or stronger?  
  
She soothes you back into the ravages of sleep. Seduces you back into the black realm of memories with her reassuring murmurs, her artful touch. The little girl in the picture blows out her birthday candles...darkness abounds as you snuff out a man's life.  
  
Stronger, you think as you fall.  
  
Sydney Bristow is stronger.  
  
She makes you face damnation gladly.  
  
She saved your body...but condemns your soul.  
  
And it burns hot.  
  
--end--  
  
November 26, 2001.  
  



End file.
